End of US RDA Test: LC policy during interim period

The Library of Congress will not create original RDA bibliographic records and generally will not create RDA authority records during the interim period after the US RDA Test ends on December 31, 2010 through the announcement of any implementation decision.

Some US RDA Test participants who are PCC NACO participants will continue to create RDA bibliographic records after Dec. 31, 2010. Other non-US RDA Test participants are creating RDA records now and may/will continue to create RDA records.

RDA records will be used by LC during this interim period in the following categories:

– CIP verification;
– Records created by other libraries, vendors, etc., for materials being added to LC’s collections.

In both categories, the authorized access points may be all RDA forms, all AACR2 forms, or a combination of AACR2 and RDA forms; name authority records may or may not exist in the LC/NACO Authority File.

LC’s internal procedures are posted at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/existing_RDA_records.pdf

Send questions to LChelp4rda@loc.gov.

(Cross-posted at Three Catalogers Walk Into a Blog)

“Records from LC’s RDA test are available for viewing in their online
catalogue:

http://catalog.loc.gov/

“To find the records:

“1. From the home page, left click BASIC SEARCH

“2. In the SEARCH TEXT box, type: 040e rda

“3. Left click EXPERT SEARCH in the SEARCH TYPE box.

“4. Left click BEGIN SEARCH button.

“5. To view a record, left click any title.

“6. You will be taken to the BRIEF RECORD display. To see the full
MARC record, left click MARC TAGS tab.

“The few records I saw were for books only. All have the new 33x
fields, although it’s possible that LC and/or other agencies may not
use these fields for plain vanilla texts.”
_______________

You can also search all the RDA records in WorldCat by calling up the Search WorldCat dialog box (F2) in Connexion, and typing dx:rda in the Command Line Search box at the top.

The University of Chicago Library is another RDA test site where you can view RDA records in the catalog. Just follow the PAC View links in the RDA Examples document (as the introductory paragraph notes, the MARC View links aren’t working) and then, when looking at the record, click on “MARC Display” at the left. This page links to University of Chicago documentation (including the examples) and presentations, as well as LC’s RDA-related documentation.

From the email:

“As you use the RDA Toolkit, you’ll notice ongoing improvements and additions. We look forward to your feedback. RDA Toolkit highlights to try:

* RDA instructions that are searchable and browseable
* AACR2 Rule Number Search of RDA instructions
* Workflows, mappings: tools to customize the RDA instruction set to support organizational training and processes.
* Two views of RDA content-by table of contents and by element set
* Full text of AACR2

“Bookmark the informational website www.rdatoolkit.org where you can access webinar archives, an RDA training calendar, presenter/trainer materials, pricing in the major currencies, and more.

“If you need to process a subscription before the electronic order form and payment gateway go live in the next few weeks, please contact us via the RDA Toolkit Support Center at www.rdatoolkit.org/support so we can process your order. You will not pay for any part of your subscription that falls within the open-access period; we will extend all subscriptions through at least August 31, 2011.

“And if you’re attending ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., visit us in the exhibits at booth #2605 for a demo, to chat with ALA Digital Reference Publisher Troy Linker and other staff, and to review an early sample of the print RDA Instructions.”

Prospective users have been advised to sign up for the open-access period on the same basis as the planned subscription; for most, that means an institutional rather than individual authorization. Within institutions, each individual user should create a personal user profile:

“Once logged into the RDA Toolkit , instruct your users to create a User Profile by clicking the ‘Create’ button in the upper right hand corner of the browser window.”

If you haven’t signed up yet, of course there is still plenty of time to do so. Go to www.rdatoolkit.org and you’ll find a sign-up link.

Troy Linker of ALA Digital Reference has links to several useful posts on RDA on the ALA Connect site. I also recommend viewing the two (so far) webinars archived at the RDA Toolkit site, Making the Most of RDA Toolkit’s Open-Access Period and the earlier RDA Toolkit—A Guided Tour. The publishers are also maintaining a calendar of training opportunities offered by ALA Publishing as well as other groups (this will be self-reported, so if you are part of a group organizing a training event, there is a link to add it on the Teaching and Training page).

One more link for tonight: The Library of Congress has posted test examples of records cataloged under AACR2 and RDA for comparison here. As you will see at the link, six documents have been posted to date and others are expected. You will note some inconsistencies between examples, some of which are matters of catalogers’ judgment but some of which, I believe, are errors (I plan to contact LC about these and will post any reply I get).

Update: Seven LC sample documents are now posted. I had questioned the capitalization of some of the Books examples, such as this from Example 2:

245 10 $a APRIL 1865 : $b The Month That Saved America / $c Jay Winik.
250 ## $a FIRST EDITION.

It turns out that RDA includes an option to use capitalization as found in the source. The result certainly looks ugly to a cataloger grounded in AACR2, but this option is potentially a time-saving measure, allowing data scanned from the resource or copied from an online source to be dropped into the record with minimal editing.

What we all need sometimes is perspective.

Don’t despair.

That’s from Leigh Anne’s latest Pensée at Library Alchemy, a witty and eloquent essay on Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz and on why what we do in this often-beleaguered profession matters so much.

Go read it, please. And I’d recommend Canticle, too, if you haven’t read it in a while or ever.

We’ll talk about RDA later.

http://www.rdatoolkit.org/openaccess

Quoting from the linked page,

“The contents of the RDA Toolkit will be completely open at no charge for everyone to try from the RDA launch date in June 2010 through August 31, 2010. The open-access period will end on August 31, 2010 regardless of the actual launch date. Specific details on how to register for the free open-access period will be announced closer to the launch date. Sign up[*] to be added to a mailing list to receive announcements and updates about this and many other RDA Toolkit topics.

“After the complimentary open-access period, potential subscribers can sign up for a 30-day free trial account to help them evaluate the RDA Toolkit. Trials for either solo-user or multi-user accounts will be offered. During this 30-day free trial period users will have full and complete access to the RDA Toolkit site.”

*Sign-up link is http://www.rdatoolkit.org/rdalist

(Cross-posted at Three Catalogers Walk Into a Blog.)

Quoting Christopher Dawson of OCLC:

“This Technical Bulletin covers all of the Library of Congress’s MARC Update 10 and most of MARC Update 11 (exceptions are noted). Many of these changes relate to the WorldCat testing of Resource Description and Access (RDA), the proposed successor to AACR2. Also covered are comments and requests from OCLC users and staff.

“Implementations of the OCLC-MARC updates covered in the Technical Bulletin may occur in stages, which OCLC will announce via logon Messages of the Day, Connexion News, and the OCLC-CAT listserv. It is recommended that users not begin to use the new capabilities, fields and subfields, indicators, practices, and codes until OCLC announces that they may be used.”

A list of Technical Bulletins currently in force can be found here.

(Cross-posted at Three Catalogers Walk Into a Blog.)

RDA: Resource Description and Access will be published in June 2010. While we regret this delay in release of RDA, the transition from publication of AACR2 as a printed manual to release of RDA as a web based toolkit is a complex process with many interdependencies.

The updated text of RDA incorporates recommendations from constituencies and other stakeholders approved at the JSC meeting earlier this year. The revised text has been successfully loaded into the RDA database. The product is currently undergoing thorough quality review and testing in preparation for release.

We recognize that customers and prospective users of RDA need reliable and timely information for planning and budgeting. We are confident that this revised deadline is a realistic target for publication of RDA.

Pricing and purchasing information will be introduced at the time of the ALA Midwinter Meeting, 15-18 January 2010.

Mary Ghikas, Chair Committee of Principals
Alan Danskin, Chair Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA
Don Chatham, Chair Co-publishers

(Cross-posted at Three Catalogers Walk into a Blog)

That is supposed to be a Chinese curse. It probably isn’t, but like that other apocryphal paradox we ascribe to the Chinese–the character for “crisis” comprising the ideograms for “danger” and “opportunity”–it has a nugget of truth that rewards reflection.

For we do live in interesting times, and that can feel like a curse. And we–at whatever level you understand “we,” from the human and non-human world to our particular corner of our profession–do stand at a point of crisis, the danger clearly visible, the opportunity less so, but surely still there.

In a presentation at the ALCTS 50th Anniversary Conference, Richard A. Lanham said, “You are in the right place at the right time with the right skills and talents. We need them–and the tranquil quiet in which you practice them–more than ever.”  (“The Two Markets: Libraries in an Attention Economy,” Library Resources & Technical Services 52:2 (2008): 3-11.)  This affirmation is the more heartening as it comes not from a fellow librarian but from a professor emeritus of English.

If you are like me, you respond with a mixture of gratitude and unease. We who are engaged in the discipline of cataloging know–I hope–that we are needed now more than ever. But unlike farmers, nurses, merchants, mechanics, teachers–and reference librarians–not self-evidently needed. We are deeper in the background than that, and our economic position depends on a degree of foresight on the part of financial decision-makers over whom we have no power, but at best a measure of influence; a degree of good will, of willingness to look beyond the immediate bottom line, that is often forthcoming but, as we have seen, sometimes not.

Did you notice Lanham’s mention of “the tranquil quiet in which you practice them”? How unexpected, how quaint almost, the notion of “tranquil quiet” in a culture that so often seems a seething stew of phone bank, video game, and the Rush Hour of Ten Thousand Hummers. Our own profession, wishing laudably and reasonably to engage with society and make our libraries welcoming places for all, sometimes forgets that some people–and some acts of reflection and creation–need space, silence, and the suspension of expectations. In this, as in other things, we are called to be countercultural.